jaffamonkey

Though I appreciate the value of web social networking tools, most rely on the fact your life is full and interesting enough to warrant to constant updates. Twitter is a good case in point - following the walkie-talkie principle - i.e. unless there is someone on the other end, you are talking into empty space. Basically these applications take too much effort for the majority of people. IM clients have been around a long while, and are available on a variety of platforms, and communicate via several protocols - so why do we need the new communications tools? Simple, they are new and evolving, and business are being built on them. Essentially we are being sold to by the salesman, who have a vested interest is us adopting these web tools into our lives.

Technology has history of providing solutions to something no-one hs asked for yet. Bluetooth was langishing for while as a technology, until bright sparks invented applications of the technology in a practical way. Twitter and Facebook are generally still dominated by those in the business, who have vested interest in using these tools. These people already have a social network, and are merely using these web tools as another means of communication between them. The next few years will prove interesting, as these great inventions will find purpose, or maybe evolve into something else that truly is universal, and not just another web application dependant of user-driven content.